mom column
My writing baby and me
© Aliaksei Lasevich / Adobe Stock
Is actually anything cuter than a baby, especially since: own baby? With this question, many moments come to our author’s mind, accompanied by an incredibly loud noise.
What others call “the magical first year” looks like this in my memory: I’m crouching on the floor in the bathroom, my heart racing, as if I’m in imminent danger. My daughter is screaming next door. I’m in here because of you. Her constant screaming is driving me crazy, only to be drowned out by a voice inside me warning: You can’t leave a desperate child alone! I take a deep breath and go to my crying bundle even though I want to run away … Looking back, I see more moments: wolfing down cold noodles from the pot because I can’t find time to warm them up. I see myself picking baby poop out of my cream wool sweater. And how I stand topless in front of the freezer to cool my inflamed breasts.
For me, baby’s first year was a hell of burp cloths, nipple shields, and self-doubt. We had a perpetually awake, perpetually crying infant that I could not put down for a moment. I held my daughter. I wore them all day. Several times I found myself rocking back and forth at the traffic light even when I didn’t have the baby with me. how did i feel Exhausted, sobered, reduced to a few basic needs. Where was the nest warmth, my rapture, the whole bundle of joy theme, the peace? When I had time to myself, I used it to feel ashamed. What a bad mother I had to be if I couldn’t calm my child down.
Oh god, such an angel, was the comment when my baby was happy with the world for a moment – only to wake up screaming. Screaming children aren’t cute, they’re red and crumpled, and those piercing sounds coming out of their little bodies still make me cringe to this day. Then every time the relief: It’s over, I’m no longer responsible! It’s the parents of the other cry babies that I want to hug and comfort.
Maybe it will be different the second time?
The second year as a mother wasn’t exactly a picnic either. Our daughter woke up so frequently at night that I was often nauseous from tiredness during the day. Complete madness – but two years after her birth I was pregnant again. “You are a courageous woman,” said my friend, who had a similar experience at the time and decided against having a second child. I was so sure it would be easier this time, wanted to experience what everyone else seemed to be experiencing: Walks with a peacefully sleeping baby in a stroller. Moments in the café with other parents and a “Sunshine” contestant obliviously gnawing on her teething ring. This intimacy, this meltdown in the face of so much cuteness.
But I got a similar caliber again. Our midwife called these porous, explosive little creatures “matchstick children”. But two? It’s really rare and easy too… My fault, I added silently. “Bad luck,” she thought. The second parental leave, which others spend relaxing in the Bulli in Portugal, is also one of the worst phases of my life. Portugal. Are you serious? On many days I didn’t even dare to go to the bakery with the ticking time bomb. I walked around like a zombie with red eyes and dry shampoo in my hair. “Enjoy the time, it goes by so quickly.” Often heard. This sentence no longer only aroused feelings of guilt, but also hope. Would she really? WHEN?
With the strenuous specimens it would be all the better later, so they appeased me. Today I know: That’s correct. The maternal emotional exuberance set in when the helplessness ended, both that of the children and my own. And he’s still improving. At five and seven, the two are so adorable that it’s almost unbearable. It’s called equal justice. I don’t even want to imagine what the parents of constantly sleeping model babies are going to face when they are teenagers…